Petrichor
by handoverthebiscuit
Summary: War is not kind enough to give time for recovery. Post Fake Karakura battle AU.
1. Serein

**Petrichor**

_War is not kind enough to give time for recovery. Post Fake Karakura battle AU._

* * *

Part I

Serein

"There is always a storm. There is always rain.  
Some experience it, some live through it.  
And others are made from it."

\- Shannon L Alder

.

* * *

Ichigo woke to an unrelenting pressure to his gut. The smell of wet, crushed grass clogged his senses, and he blinked his vision into clarity. After several gasps of cold, humid air, his eyes managed to focus in the darkness on the barrel of a small pistol aimed straight at the centre of his forehead.

The grogginess faded instantly, but the confusion remained. He jerked upright, but the heel of a heavy boot dug into his side, its weathered rubber sole pressing him into the wet gravel.

The hand that held the gun was expertly steady, and a commanding voice loomed from above him. 'Speak, or die.'

'What?'

'I ask again. What is a stormbringer doing in our valley?' With one smooth flick of the wrist, the safety catch flipped off.

His first instinct was to roll out from under the foot pressing him down, but being dizzy from too many factors to count - mainly confusion - drastically hindered his ability to do so. Instead, he raised his palms in surrender. 'I can explain,' Ichigo started, hoping to buy some well-needed time to calm his frayed nerves, gather his wits and figure out what the _hell_ was actually going on.

'Very good,' the menacing tone from beyond the gun said, completely unmoved by his surrender. 'Because you are in violation of the treaty.'

'Is it really a crime to get knocked out and wake up in a foreign land?' he questioned, regretting getting sassy with a stranger holding a gun only a moment later.

Ichigo tore his gaze from the terrifying weapon that was still trained on his forehead and forced himself to take in his surroundings. Dark grey mountains rose in all directions, imposing and grand, their rough and jagged silhouettes like the edges of ripped paper. Although the entire mountain range was pitch dark, the highest peak was alight with a shining blue flame, and the plateau to its left hummed with the gentle yellow glow of a civilisation - _his_ town, he realised. The ink-black sky was flooded with innumerable stars and galaxies in the darkness, while thick angry clouds threatened to eat away at the clear night. The bases of the mountains melded together in a vast crumble of rock that descended into a plain of tall grass, which turned to gravel that bordered the lake. At the centre of the valley was an immense lake, its surface still as glass, yet darker than the night. Shimmering on the water surface were clusters of silver light that mirrored the constellations from above, wavering faintly despite the fact that there was neither current nor wind. Where there were clouds, he noticed, the lake was devoid of light.

He had never been to Starlight Valley before, but there was no other place with a mining lake so vast. Also, there was no other place on earth where he would be pinned down by a boot and held at gunpoint. Probably. Under different circumstances (ones that didn't involve his life at stake), he might have been excited. The process of mining starlight had always intrigued him - how did the reflections of the stars in the glassy still surface of the lake turn into tangible energy? He'd heard it was like scooping gossamer, shining and brilliant and glorious, off the lake; he'd heard it was like the will-o-the-wisps of the water.

The person holding the gun snarled like a feral creature. 'It _is_ a crime,' he hissed.

A second voice caught him by surprise - he hadn't noticed that his assailant had company. 'Now, now, Captain. Whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty"?'

'Shut up, Matsumoto,' the first voice retorted. 'We're arresting him.'

Matsumoto giggled. 'Aw, you're just mad that he sank your boat, aren't you?'

'...That might have been a factor,' the first voice said contemplatively. Ichigo felt the boot lift from his stomach, yet a seemingly otherworldly pressure kept him on the ground, stealing his consciousness. As quickly as it was revealed to him, the sight of a tall blonde and a boy with glowing green eyes faded with his senses.

_Stormhunters_, his mind automatically told him.

_That's strange. Where have I seen them before?_

.

.

'He saved the Valleys once - we shouldn't be treating him like some sort of criminal!'

'We have no choice, do we? He has no memory of those events.'

'It is only for his safety, after all. Aizen is on the loose.'

'Perhaps wiping his memory was not the wisest of decisions.'

'Is there a possibility of the recent events triggering a total recall?'

'Will his stormhunter powers awaken again?'

The meeting was, as usual, utterly ridiculous. What little starlight his men had collected that evening simmered quietly in a lamp, flickering weakly around the shadows of the remaining captains. No one had said a word about how he had showed up last to the meeting he had requested - drenched, five men and one boat less, and with unsettling news of an unexpected visitor in tow. It would only be a matter of time before the Captain-commander shut everyone up and began criminalising him.

_Three, two, one-_

Yamamoto rapped his heavy wooden cane against the polished wood of the floor, effectively silencing the murmurs that filled the hall. 'Captain Hitsugaya, if you would provide an adequate explanation for this,' he rumbled, gesturing vaguely around the inadequately lit room and the damp puddle that trailed from the doorway to the spot under Hitsugaya.

Hitsugaya sighed.

'We have a treaty with the Stormbringers of Granite Plateau,' he began. 'In return for peaceful weather in Starlight Valley, we supply them with ten per cent of the starlight we harvest.'

'Tell us something we don't know, will you?' Kurotsuchi could be such a pain, he thought. Hitsugaya refused to tear his gaze from where he was caught in a deadlock stare-down with the Captain-commander, but Kurotsuchi's voice always sounded like nails dragging across a blackboard and some days he just really, _really_ wanted to punch him in the pasty white face.

'Let him continue,' Ukitake prompted gently.

'_Yes_,' he bit out impatiently. 'Let me continue. This evening, I sent five men to the lake, only to have them killed in a Class A storm before the backup they requested could show up. By the time I arrived, it had subsided to a Class C, and in the eye of the storm I find none other than Kurosaki Ichigo of Granite Plateau. It seemed that he retains no memories of the Valleys or his role in the war. To be on the safe side, we have placed him in a holding cell for now. What I want to know is, how did he end up here? What, exactly, has the Border Guard been doing to let him so far inland into my valley?'

Yamamoto did not blink. Instead, he said calmly, 'I received no report of a Class A storm.'

'I haven't reported it,' Hitsugaya reminded him irritably while he dripped water all over the floor. 'I just returned. I'm reporting it _now_.'

'Hm,' Yamamoto remained unconvinced. 'What does the Border Guard have to say about this?'

Soifon stepped forward, her face expressionless and unreadable. 'The border was not breached this evening, sir.'

'I want detailed reports on the events of this evening and border activity of the past week,' Yamamoto ordered. 'Captain Ukitake will handle the investigation - this meeting is adjourned. And, Captain Hitsugaya? I would prefer my captains _dry_ and _presentable_ when they request meetings in the middle of the night.'

'Yes, sir,' he sighed as he turned and went, squelching most unbecomingly out of the presence of the Captain-commander.

.

.

Upon returning to the warm comfort of his office, Hitsugaya dropped himself into his oversized chair behind his oversized desk.

'How was the meeting?' Matsumoto asked from behind an ominous tower of papers and files. 'Alcohol for you, sir?' She asked, without waiting for him to even answer her first question. She was, unlike him, freshly showered and dressed in dry gear. He wrung out the cuffs of his jacket fruitlessly and swept back hair that had pasted itself to his cheeks.

'I hate meetings. All old men and big egos and narrow minds. Also politics.'

'Hm,' his lieutenant responded mostly indifferently. 'Alcohol for you, sir? Warms the body and lifts the soul?'

'I shall "warm my body" and "lift my soul" with other methods not involving intoxication, thank you very much. Have you done _any_ paperwork at all?' Hitsugaya began kneading his temples, as if it would do anything to cease the onset of another headache.

Matsumoto laughed again, though it would never be as bright and sunny as it had been before the war. 'What do you take me for? I've filled in that Class A storm report, the damages report, the paperwork to transfer the responsibility of Kurosaki Ichigo to the Thirteenth, and also conveniently left out any details about how you were nearly defeated by an unconscious stormbringer. Appreciation please, Captain?'

He slouched down and rested his cheek against the cool wood of the table. 'Okay, yeah. Do whatever you want.'

'Really?' Matsumoto perked up visibly, nearly toppling a stack of documents in the process. 'Then I want you to go talk to Momo.'

'God.'

'You haven't spoken a word to her ever since this whole Aizen thing began, right? That's almost a whole year,' she pointed out matter-of-factly.

'What can I do to turn you back into the slacking lieutenant who doesn't harass me into doing things I don't want to do?' He began rearranging his in-tray and wiped down his favourite pen.

'If you would just listen to me and accept the fact that she _doesn't_ hate you-'

'This conversation is completely dysfunctional, you know.'

'You can't keep running from your problems the way you keep steering our conversations into the ditch, Captain.'

'Can't you tell that Aizen's betrayal hurt her the most out of all of us? How could I face her when I played such a big role in the efforts to take him down? How could I look her in the eye when, every time she was hospitalised, it was my fault?' He hadn't looked up from the desk at all while he spoke, and if Matsumoto didn't know any better she would have assumed her captain was talking to his knees, except she knew that nobody's knees had ever brought down so much guilt onto a single person's shoulders.

The prolonged silence that ensued was so tense that she wanted to scream, but just as she drew a deep breath, Hitsugaya lifted his head and fixed her with the gaze of a dead man, dull and limp. In that moment she wished she could wish away the system that allowed children to lead a war. In fact, she wished she could wish away the system that allowed children to even be in a war. He was sixteen during the war, still sixteen now, she told herself. Sixteen was far too young to die inside.

She wasn't much older either, she reminded herself.

He had stood up and was making his way purposefully for the door. 'Is that all you had to say?' he asked, his tone as empty as his eyes.

'No.' She chewed the inside of her cheek, wondering what kind of damage she'd have to deal with once she'd said what she wanted to say. This time, it was Matsumoto who looked away - she didn't want to see her words hit him where it hurt most. 'I would give anything to talk to Gin again,' she whispered, as if the volume at which she spoke would alleviate the stupidity of what she was saying.

'I'm sorry,' Matsumoto supplied, slightly louder, but she still dared not look up. 'That was out of line. Sorry.'

Her apology was met with a stark silence, save for the sound of the door clicking shut.

.

.

He needed a bath, not that he wasn't already soaked.

Hitsugaya lowered himself into the bathtub, doing his best to ignore the twinge in his shoulder and the flare of pain in his leg. If he pretended hard enough, maybe he could convince himself that the injuries he sustained just over a month ago did not exist. If he pretended hard enough, maybe he could convince himself that the war did not happen. If he pretended hard enough, maybe he could convince himself that nothing was wrong.

But he knew Matsumoto was right - that a year was too long.

It had been almost exactly a year since Aizen hoofed his evil traitorous intentions out of the Valleys, leaving a trail of casualties in his wake. He had banded together with rebel groups of stormbringers, somehow bestowed them with the powers of stormhunters, and proceeded to wreak havoc. Stormbringers in general had power - they could raise a storm of epic proportions, but with little control of the winds outside of the eye - while stormhunters had precision, the ability to finetune every last gust within a small perimeter.

They had narrowly evaded defeat because of Kurosaki, a boy who possessed both stormbringer and stormhunter powers but belonged to Granite Plateau. He had, at the expense of his stormhunter powers, driven a storm straight into Aizen, successfully weakening him into retreat, while their remaining soldiers destroyed Aizen's forces. Hitsugaya knew, however, that retreat was almost always followed by regroup, then revenge, and that he would never be ready for the counterattack. None of them had escaped uninjured, and the captains had decided it was best for Kurosaki himself that they erase the boy's memories of the war and his powers before sending him back home.

Experimentally, Hitsugaya concentrated his energy into his palm, raising a tiny whirlwind that spun in his lightly-clasped fist. He couldn't imagine life without this power, no matter how much he used to hate it. With a little more effort, he reversed its rotation and shifted its balance. The key to negating storms, they'd been taught, was to counter it with another storm of the exact opposite coordinates, and the only way to achieve that was to combine accurate observation of the storm with perfect control of his powers. Without warning, a bolt of pain shot through his arm, originating from where he knew there was a scar on his shoulder. The storm in his hand vaporised just as quickly, and his arm fell to his side like a deadweight, its movement slowed by the water. He swore under his breath, and slid down until the water level was just beneath his eyes, letting a breath out as a stream of bubbles.

Perhaps he really ought to see Hinamori.

.

.

As it turned out, Hitsugaya barely had the time to even step out of his division's compounds when a slew of events incapacitated any resolve he had worked up in the bath. The blue flame alight by Granite Plateau had turned bright yellow, signifying a distress call. Captain Ukitake requested a meeting with him the following morning, and the Captain-commander had ordered high alert procedures. The Sixth and Eleventh had been dispatched up the mountains, while the remaining divisions had to triple patrol, but being five men short meant he needed to rearrange the roster.

At least the excitement had waited until he was dry and dressed, he mused. It would have been even better if it had waited for him to sleep, too, but all things considered, he admitted he would rather be dressed and sleepless than the other way around.

Slamming the office door open, he found Matsumoto miraculously at her desk. Not so miraculous, unfortunately, was the array of doodles spread across a sheet of rough paper on the desk. With the smoothness of a hardened criminal, she flipped the paper over. 'Oh, hi Captain.'

'Emergency protocol,' he said, interrupting what was most likely an apology he didn't have the heart to discuss. 'No time for apologies and no time for feelings. Notify the division; I'm heading out.' Hitsugaya spoke brusquely as he holstered his spare handgun and loaded his equipment belt, hooking a communication unit around his ear. Outside the window, gathering heavy clouds consumed the lightening dawn sky, rendering a darkness deeper than night.

'I'm coming with you,' Matsumoto said immediately, mirroring his movements. 'If we yodel while we run down the corridor, the division will follow us out, if not out of curiosity.'

'But your ribs-' Hitsugaya protested.

'Bah. If all the unrecovered people stayed home, we might as well enter lockdown.'

'And nobody is going to yodel.'

Fortunately for the figures of authority of the Tenth Division and their dignity, as they threw themselves out of the office, they collided into a group of concerned soldiers. Succinct orders sent them scurrying, filling the narrow corridor with the sounds of heavy boots on wood.

Outside, the wind was picking up with an eerie howl, tearing grass mercilessly from the ground. _How_ could anyone conjure a storm of such insane proportions - it seemed to fill the whole valley, and rise fathoms up into the sky, calling and swallowing clouds from every direction. This was beyond any Class A storm he had seen before, and it had formed in a matter of seconds.

To his surprise, the earpiece Hitsugaya wore buzzed to life. He hadn't thought it would work in such terrible interference. 'This is Division Twelve, I repeat, Division Twelve,' the tinny voice reverberated. 'Large-scale Class A spanning Starlight Valley and Whitewater Valley,' it reported.

_Two_ valleys? Whitewater was Eleven's territory, and Eleven had mostly gone up the mountain.

'All units in combat, report your positions,' said the controller on the other end of the communication line. Every division was split into units of ten soldiers, except Unit One which consisted of only the captain and lieutenant.

'Ten-one,' Hitsugaya said as he ran, not bothering to check if Matsumoto was following him - she was never more than a pace behind. 'Starlight east. Heading north. Anti-clockwise winds, clockwise undercurrent.'

He counted off the number of units reporting in after him - nine in Starlight but only three in Whitewater. 'Units Two and Eight,' he called into the air, marvelling at how the minuscule piece of technology could differentiate his voice from the screeching storm. 'Take the western pass and support Eleven.' Even if they were madmen from the Eleventh, thirty men could easily be wiped out by a Class A.

The humidity of the storm was unbearable, and he was sure the pressure levels were hazardous, but they needed to locate the eye of the storm and pinpoint the stormbringer controlling the gale before hail precipitated. Almost as if his mind had been read, the controller spoke again. 'Humidity 100, pressure 950 hectopascals. Wind speeds climbing above 55 knots.'

Hitsugaya could feel the energy draining out of him as he countered the winds around him, could feel his control slipping, but refused to let himself slow down. He wasn't sure how much time had passed without a single word in his ear, and he was beginning to wonder if the communication link had finally given in to the storm. If they could shield themselves through the inner spiral of the storm, the eye would be near. As storms went, this wasn't the strongest, he realised - just the largest.

'Ten-three,' crackled the earpiece. 'Starlight south is under control. Heading north with four and five.'

'Eleven-three,' the reports continued. 'Whitewater east is calming down. One man down.'

'Subsiding to Class B. Pressure 970 hectopascals, wind speeds 40 knots. We calculate the eye to be in Starlight northwest,' the Twelfth said. 'All units begin convergence.'

Matsumoto was slowing down, he noticed. _Her lungs aren't fully healed yet_, the thought horrified him. Hail whirled through the air, flying uncontrolled in the clashing winds of the storm and their efforts - the only sign that they were approaching the peaceful centre of the storm.

'Captain!' she called, showing no sign of how hard it was to breathe. 'I'll take over the wind. Find the centre.'

Slowly, he retracted his control over the air, watching carefully as Matsumoto poured out more power. Once he was sure she was as steady as she would get, he sent a sharp pulse of cold air outwards. It would, momentarily, reveal a haven of calm weather as it sliced through the columns of rushing air and sheets of rain. A stray sunbeam was instantly drowned in sleet, but they were closer than he had expected.

'Centre located,' he relayed. 'Ten-one moving in- shit-'

Hitsugaya's leg folded beneath him - he was surprised it hadn't happened earlier - and he swore as he hit the ground, barely aware that he had pulled himself into a crouch and forced himself to roll through the last wall of the storm, his left hand reaching for a gun. What he least expected was for someone to grab him mid-roll and jerk him upright. A strong arm wrapped itself across his shoulders, pinning him back against what had to be his assailant's chest, and a metallic singing was the only warning he received before something cold pressed against his jawline.

_What a sucker,_ he smirked. _This moron needs two hands to restrain one person, and I could kick him between the legs anytime._ Then, _I wish I were taller, then I could bash him in the face with the back of my head, too._

Deciding to not play dirty so early into the fight, he whipped his left arm upwards, jamming the barrel of the gun into the stormbringer's chin. 'State your purpose,' he ordered, pressing the barrel of his second gun into the stormbringer's knee. He could feel warmth spread from the wound he knew was on his neck.

At that moment, Matsumoto broke into the eye of the storm, her gun cocked and ready, her stance solid. 'Unhand him,' she commanded, as if she wasn't gasping for breath - only the slightest shiver gave her away.

'You little stormhunters think you've won the fight just because you outnumber me,' the stormbringer's voice was arrogant and unruffled, yet rough like metal grating against rock. 'But today was not meant to be a fight - I'm just here to deliver a message from Aizen. He says, "Hand over Kurosaki Ichigo. This is just the beginning."' The stormbringer cackled unsettlingly, the ghastly noise akin to the rattling of bones.

'What do you want?' Hitsugaya demanded. 'What is Aizen planning?'

The stormbringer laughed mirthlessly again, his head tilted back. 'To create a pure race,' he sneered. 'A pure, powerful race, and of course step one is to obliterate little inferior beings such as yourself. Or perhaps, I'd be glad to take a hostage, and we could have a little human trade - you for that hybrid boy…' Hitsugaya felt the arm holding him down tighten its grip, and decided to take matters into his own hands - Matsumoto wouldn't shoot, not when he was in the perfect position to be a human shield.

Dropping the gun in his right hand, he grabbed the stormbringer's knife and flung it outwards, welling with satisfaction as he heard it smash into the ground.

Hitsugaya fired.

The shot momentarily deafened him - he was quite sure he would be the only idiot around to fire a gun above his own ear - and he wrestled himself out of the dying man's grasp. Once his head cleared, he sighed. 'What a mess.' The storm had dissolved when the stormbringer fell, and all the stormhunters involved were running towards them. Into his earpiece, he said, 'Requesting cleanup.'

'Cleanup?' Matsumoto practically yelled. 'How about some medical attention? I'll punch your lights out if that's what it takes to get you in the infirmary.'

'Could you ask them for some caffeine pills while you're at it? I think I'm at least two hours late to a meeting with Captain Ukitake.'

Matsumoto's eyes narrowed as she eyed him with suspicion. 'Are you saying I can punch your lights out?'

'You're swaying on your feet, you hypocrite,' Hitsugaya pointed out.

'Perhaps it hasn't yet occurred to you that I am graceful like a coconut tree in the breeze.'

He tried to laugh, but the world was spinning and tilting dangerously as adrenaline quickly abandoned him, and he didn't have the breath to spare.

.

.

Ukitake leaned back in his chair and exhaled deeply. He had concluded, after about half an hour, that either his message or Hitsugaya had been held up somewhere and his meeting was not going to happen. He could probably do with a little stroll in his free time, then.

Just then, the door burst open and Kiyone tumbled in, somehow balancing a teapot and teacup on a tray as she tripped over her own feet. 'Captain! I made you a pot of tea! It's that jasmine blend-'

The wooden sliding door had slammed so hard, it flew open on a rebound to admit an equally flustered Sentaro. 'Oh yeah? I swiped a couple of your favourite sweet buns from the steamer, Captain!' he shouted over the chaos.

Ukitake swiftly avoided the flailing limbs of his subordinates and caught the door before it rebounded for a second time. 'I have an errand to run, so why don't the two of you sit tight and have brunch together?' he suggested brightly. 'Tea and buns, if I'm not wrong,' and bolted with the grace and dignity that the duo lacked.

He made his way underground, to the holding cell where Ichigo was being kept and had, reportedly, regained consciousness. The atmosphere was dank and the lighting dim, the air brimming with the scent of earth - he wouldn't wish captivity in this miserable place on anyone. Ichigo had taken to lying on the ground, facing the wall opposite the corridor.

'Hello,' Ukitake called out to the room at large. 'Kurosaki Ichigo, I would like you to answer some questions I have to the best of your ability. But first, let me introduce myself. I am-'

The boy sat up and turned around then, with an oddly clear-eyed look on his face for someone who had recently been knocked out. 'I know who you are. You guys gave me all morning to think about all the gaps in my memory and this terribly dizzying sensation called deja vu. You're Ukitake Jushiro, captain of the Thirteenth Division.'

'Ah,' Ukitake said. 'This is going to be complicated,' he muttered to himself.

Ichigo proceeded to ramble. 'I remember everything. I remember that asshole Aizen, and I remember the war. I remember him literally storming my town like, last night. The only thing I don't remember is how I got off the mountain. Does that answer enough of your questions? Can you let me out now that you don't have to maintain some silly facade about how heinous a criminal I am for probably falling off the sierra?'

Ukitake stroked his chin with such fervour that Ichigo was sure a beard would begin sprouting at any moment. 'Well, could you tell me what happened last night, then?'

It took him a moment to take his eyes off the captain's chin and organise his thoughts. 'Just before midnight, the weather went crazy, and everyone hid indoors,' he recounted. For some strange reason, forming his memories into words to be heard by another made him doubt the credibility of his own mind - it was so simple for one to pass off another's account as mere hallucinations, and he felt he could even dismiss his own memories of the truth as ramblings of the mad if he put himself to it. He tried to shake the feeling and keep his story germane. 'I stayed outside,' he continued, 'because it felt like something was off. I didn't know what it was then, but I know now that it was because I had fought the same storm before.'

Ukitake nodded slowly, as if he were taking his time to comprehend his tale. 'And you don't remember anything after?'

Ichigo shook his head. 'You know everything else. You know, waking up in the valley, getting arrested by a psycho-'

His little spiel was interrupted by the creak of the door swinging open. 'Captain Ukitake,' the soldier in the doorway called. 'Captain Hitsugaya requests an immediate meeting with you.'

'_That_ psycho,' Ichigo interjected. 'I remember him too.'

If Ukitake was affronted by Ichigo insulting one of his fellow captains, he didn't show it. Instead, he stood and lightly brushed off his sleeves. 'In his office?' he asked.

'At the Fourth, sir.'

'Oh my,' Ukitake sighed. 'Did he specify what it concerns?'

The soldier's look drifted towards Ichigo for a second. 'He requested for you to come alone,' he said.

'Very well,' Ukitake said as he turned and stepped towards the exit.

'Are you ever going to un-arrest me?' Ichigo called out after his retreating silhouette.

Ukitake massaged his temples. One day, all these young people would drive him to madness with their eagerness, he thought. 'I'll see to it,' he said tiredly.

He had never liked the Fourth - it was always too sterile, too quiet, too still, with a false air of serenity weighing its air down, compounded with the heaviness of illness and injury. It could hardly be considered a pleasant place, which was a pity since Stillmist Valley was incomparably scenic with its sheer blue lakes and fields of emerald blooming with cornflowers and poppies. The poppies were a cruel coincidence, he always thought, that the flowers for the death of soldiers flourished around the hospital.

When Ukitake hurried into the infirmary, he was mildly relieved to find a relatively unharmed Hitsugaya sitting up in bed, sporting a bandage and a scowl. A medic was shining a light into his left ear, which Ukitake could tell had been bleeding slightly.

'Gone and done something reckless again, have you?' Ukitake asked, not without care.

'All in the name of self-preservation, Captain Ukitake,' the younger replied, sounding slightly defeated.

'Good priorities,' he conceded.

In his right hand, Hitsugaya held a glass of what could only be Unohana's reputably repulsive medical tonic that supposedly did wonders for restoring energy and boosting recovery speed, while a glass of warm milk sat ignored on the nightstand. Perhaps he had his priorities straight on the battlefield, but elsewhere, they appeared to be questionable.

'You know,' Ukitake said, 'I've never seen anyone else prefer that tonic over warm milk.' He gestured mildly at Hitsugaya's choice of drink. The medic appeared to be done and he left the room with a silent bow.

'It's a false dilemma. Since I have to pick my poison, I might as well drink the one that's going to be good for me, right?' the eccentric captain raised a white eyebrow at Ukitake. 'Besides, it's disgusting - it's a wonder people don't drop dead all around dairy farms daily.'

Ukitake laughed. The boy had a constitution of steel that turned into a puddle before milk, it seemed.

'I assume though, that you called me here for issues more important than belittling the livelihoods of cows around the nation?' Ukitake said as he pulled a chair up to the bedside.

'Most definitely. We had another encounter with a Stormbringer in Starlight, with damages in Whitewater. He said Aizen wants Kurosaki - that he wants to create a pure race, ironically enough, of stormbringer and stormhunter hybrids - which explains why he's been messing around and creating hybrids himself. I have reported the matter to the Captain-commander, but we need the Border Guard to investigate how they managed to get past our borders twice in one night.' Hitsugaya leaned back into his pillow and ran a hand through his hair. 'None of this makes any sense,' he moaned.

'Well, keep your wits about you, because this mess is about to make even less sense,' Ukitake warned as he drew out a sheaf of papers. 'I spoke with young Kurosaki this morning,' he said as he absently straightened the thin stack of documents. 'And he recounted to me his version of the recent events – that last night, there was a storm atop the mountain that resulted in him somehow ending up in Starlight Valley, where you discovered and apprehended him. When did this happen?'

'Early this morning,' Hitsugaya replied. He could barely believe that so much had happened in one very long morning. 'Between one and two in the morning, right before the meeting I called.'

'Right,' Ukitake nodded. 'According to him, there was a storm last night and he was arrested this morning. Yet,' he paused to lay out the documents he had been holding across the bedspread. 'These records from the Twelfth indicate that there was no mountaintop storm last night, but that it occurred the night before. And, according to the Third, radio traffic with Granite Plateau has been silent since that storm - but it is entirely possible that their communication systems were simply wrecked in the storm.'

Hitsugaya sucked in a breath and reached for the nearest weather record for Granite Plateau. The night of the eighth and morning of the ninth - last night, the night Kurosaki claimed he had met with a storm - was a still night. The next sheet of paper laid across his knees was a document from the Second, reporting zero border activity at the foothills surrounding all thirteen areas of the Valleys for the past three days. The third sheet of paper was a topographic map smeared with curls of orange blending to red and green to blue amidst the jagged mountain contours - it was the estimated storm map for the night of the seventh to the morning of the eighth.

'If Kurosaki is telling the truth,' Hitsugaya mumbled as he let out a deep breath, 'there is a twenty-four hour gap that we know nothing about. Anything could have happened at Granite Plateau in that time frame.'

'Exactly.'

'When did the Sixth and the Eleventh leave?'

'Four this morning,' Ukitake answered. 'The journey is fourteen hours, so dusk will be settling by the time they reach.'

'And almost a full forty-eight hours will have passed since our last contact with Granite Plateau.'

.

.

Ichigo did not have to wait long before the holding cells of the Thirteenth saw visitors once again. The sun was high in the sky, warm arid breezes wafted in through the small window, and the slant of the shadows had reversed, so he guessed it was slightly past noon. To his surprise, it wasn't anyone from the Thirteenth, or even Captain Ukitake. The door swung open with a creak he had grown to recognise, and Hitsugaya descended the dank staircase without Matsumoto by his side.

The boy made his way to Ichigo's cell and leaned against the far wall of the corridor across from it, his arms folded across his chest. For a minute he was silent, a bored expression written across his features, and with every passing second of silence, Ichigo become surer that he was hallucinating and that there was, in fact, no one there at all.

Then, he spoke. 'I heard you wished to be exonerated.' The captain's voice was quiet, with none of the authoritative air he had exuded last night.

Ichigo laughed a restrained, dry bark. 'Who wouldn't?'

'What is it you desire?'

Ichigo squinted. 'Are we talking about my deepest darkest desire to turn into a dancing cockatiel?'

Hitsugaya raised an eyebrow at him. 'I had no idea you harboured such noble ideals. But no, I meant, what do you intend to do with your freedom?'

'I'm going to fight,' he said forcefully, almost as if he didn't believe in himself, and didn't expect anyone else to.

'There is no war without sacrifice,' Hitsugaya said, his bright green eyes staring straight at him, his voice frigid and distant. 'To fight is to place yourself as a weapon in the hands of someone else. To abandon everything in exchange for nothing.'

'I _know_,' Ichigo felt his temper flare like a hot wave. 'Do you think I have not thought about this? Do you think I have not already sacrificed everything? That I am not ready to fight a war I once fought?'

He directed a burst of wind at Hitsugaya, surprised to find it laced with flying embers. Yet without batting an eyelid, the captain killed the outburst with a sharp flick of his wrist, instantaneously and effortlessly stilling the air in the underground chamber, and a thin ring of frost drifted to the ground while the embers winked out to leave trails of wispy smoke. Hitsugaya levelled him with a glare, but threw a single, heavy metal key across the corridor and through the bars into his lap. 'Attacking a commanding officer could get you actually arrested,' he growled. 'Captain Ukitake is waiting for you outside.'

Hitsugaya paused, as if he hesitated to speak, then said, 'Be careful. The balance between power and control is a difficult one to strike.'

And he turned and swept out of the room.

Having finished the business with Kurosaki, all he had left to do was to wait for chaos to break loose. Hitsugaya was terrible at waiting games. He also hadn't seen Matsumoto since she took off after a simple check-up at the Fourth, where she had abandoned him with an impish grin and a bottle of caffeine pills she had swiped from the shelf. He raised a hand to his brow in an attempt to physically straighten the creases he knew had knitted his expression into a frown.

He knew she was not taking the loss of Ichimaru Gin as well as she pretended, and sometimes he wondered if he was a bad influence - surely if the usually boisterous and honestly blunt Matsumoto had learnt to put up an impeccable facade, it would have to be from himself. On more than one occasion he had seen her seated at her desk with two glasses of wine, one of them untouched, with a glassy, wistful look in her eyes. Every time, he didn't have the heart to enter the office, and would silently shut the door and slink away, leaving her staring emptily into her glass - just watching her hurt so badly, sometimes he doubted if emotional recovery was ever possible, that it was just another piece in the tangled web of lies spun around them.

He had once asked her how she was coping with her loss, if there was anything he could do. She had tucked a stray lock of messy golden hair behind her ear and smiled at him. 'I'm okay,' she had lied through a layer of smudged eyeliner. 'Momo chose her captain, and…and I chose mine. So…just don't do anything stupid, okay?'

The initial realisation had been agonising, had hit him like a stack of bricks, that Hinamori had indeed chosen her captain over him, but he knew that Aizen had been nothing but gentle and kind with her, while he had been nothing short of awful. He couldn't blame her. And yet, yet Matsumoto had followed him.

The sun was low in the late afternoon sky, staining it with streaks of pink and dabs of golden while the clouds glowed a heavy orange, their shadows greyish-purple. His footfalls were silent in the cold corridor, the glow of the autumn sunlight outside soaking the polished wood with warm light that filtered daintily through vibrantly coloured leaves of all shades of fire. How ironic that the most beautiful season of the year was when all of nature was dying.

He inched the office door open and peered in through the crack. Matsumoto was there, seated in her chair with her shins propped against the edge of the desk and her chin tucked into the valley formed between her knees. She was biting her lower lip and staring off into the distance.

He pushed the door open and stepped in while she sat up straight.

'Did you climb out the window again?' Matsumoto asked suspiciously.

'I was discharged by noon,' Hitsugaya justified irritably. 'Besides, that was two years ago, and it wasn't my fault - if they hadn't barricaded the door nothing would have happened.'

'If you say so, Captain.' She squared her shoulders, the last vestiges of her downcastness falling away like water.

Hitsugaya opened his mouth to object, but quickly decided against it. He was absolutely terrible at this - she always diverted the conversation away from herself, locked herself away before he could even gather the courage to ask if there were any words he could offer to lighten her burden.

Just as he was torn between sitting down and leaving, the door rattled on its hinges, and the soldier on the other side of the door spoke with a slight edge of panic. 'I bring orders from Captain-commander Yamamoto!'

'Open the door,' Hitsugaya answered, and it promptly swung open.

'The Sixth and Eleventh have arrived at Granite Plateau. Captain Kuchiki reports the town deserted, torn with damage and devoid of life. Captain Soifon's squads have detected movement partway down the mountains - unidentified entities descending towards the foothills. We are expected to enter battle within the next hour or two; the Tenth is to support the Fifth, as it is currently without captain, at Sunbeam Valley by the border. That is all,' the soldier bowed deeply before taking a step back, waiting for their orders.

Hitsugaya stood, loading his equipment belt just as he had done twelve hours ago. 'Relay the message to the rest of the Tenth,' he told the soldier. 'Tell them to report to me battle-ready at Sunbeam in half an hour's time,' and he dismissed him.

Once the door shut, he gave Matsumoto a withering sidelong glance, pausing in his preparations. 'They never pair the Fifth and the Tenth. Ever.'

The lieutenant shrugged. 'There's a first time for everything, right?' she answered cryptically.

'I'm pretty sure you had something to do with this.'

'Weelll,' Matsumoto hesitated. 'I may or may not have slipped a little somethin' something into the Captain-commander's mid-morning tea before making some nuanced suggestions and asking some loaded questions while he was busy with a little paperwork.' She smiled charmingly at him.

Hitsugaya tried not to cradle his own head as he sighed. 'I'm going to pretend you didn't just tell me that.'

'Thank you, Captain. Though objectively speaking, alcohol is said to have healing properties, rather unlike cyanide.'

Hitsugaya seemed to shrink further into himself as a portion of what precious little sanity he had left shrivelled up. 'Heaven knows where you would get cyanide from, though.' He resumed his rhythmic motions of gathering weapons and necessities, loading a fresh battery into his earpiece before putting it back on. Beside him, exactly as she had done twelve hours ago, Matsumoto mirrored his actions.

Matsumoto had chosen him.

He shut his side of the cabinet and turned on his heel, striding out of the office.

'Come with me, Lieutenant,' he said. 'Watch my back.'

Matsumoto had chosen him, and it was about time he chose her.

* * *

_._

_End of Part I_

_._

* * *

_Review? Please? I put a lot of effort and research into this, so pretty please? Part II (the final part) will be up...soon._

_I know in canon they arrested Aizen but...I took some artistic liberties so we can have a story. Excusable? Yes. Thank you._

_Once again I am unsure of my lousy genre categorisation. I don't even know if angst/adventure exists. Oh well. Can I petition for a genre called nefarious-plots-against-humanity?_


	2. Tempest

**Petrichor**

_War is not kind enough to give time for recovery. Post Fake Karakura battle AU._

* * *

Part II

Tempest

"And once the storm is over,  
you won't remember how you made it through,  
how you managed to survive.  
You won't even be sure whether the storm is really over.  
But one thing is certain.  
When you come out of the storm,  
you won't be the same person who walked in."

\- Haruki Murakami

.

* * *

Hitsugaya was entirely apprehensive of the situation. His men knew precious little about Sunbeam Valley's terrain, and he was unfamiliar himself - he hardly had business at the Fifth, and now he was expected to fight here. The Fifth and Tenth divisions had assembled before him, with Matsumoto on his left and Hinamori next to her. He didn't dare to look at her - he was too terrified of what he might see, too afraid of what Hinamori might think of him that he would see reflected in her eyes. Not now, when he needed all of his strength and concentration. Maybe later, later he could deal with his own emotional war. Now there were greater things hanging in the balance.

'Each unit from the Tenth is to pair with its corresponding unit from the Fifth,' he instructed the large group. Two divisions meant nearly three hundred people, and he did not want to look at the faces of three hundred people, not knowing which he might not see again. 'Fifth Division soldiers will take charge of the Tenth. Each unit is to report to their allocated patrol location. I will be in charge of the battle, and Acting Captain Hinamori will take command from Unit Two. For today, all of you will take orders from both myself and Hinamori. Move!'

The effect was instant – the large mass of soldiers breaking up and scattering in all directions amidst the noisy clatter of boots on the ground. Matsumoto shot him a look. 'Did you just annihilate my brilliant persuasive efforts?' she asked furiously under her breath.

'Don't you understand that now is not the time to let emotions cloud my judgement?' he whispered back, just as furious.

Matsumoto smiled, a gleam in her eyes. 'You're a teenager,' she reminded. 'Now is always the time for hazy, emotional decisions.'

'Not now,' he hissed through gritted teeth. 'I am a captain first. Everything else is second.' He glared fixedly ahead, and the subject was dropped as abruptly as it was brought up.

They ran in silence to their assigned post, just shy of the eastern border, where the valley scooped sharply up in neatly arranged terraces, resplendent in lush green that faded with altitude into boulders. It would only take one battle to ravage this tranquil haven of its beauty, Hitsugaya thought as he focused on memorising the curve and angles of the terrace. The wind was growing, swirling with intensifying grandeur, picking up loose leaves and sending them spiralling through the air. Heavy clouds were gathering and multiplying, rolling in a thick coalescent mass, reflecting orange and golden in the setting sun's light.

'Captain?' Matsumoto interrupted the steady silence, half a pace behind Hitsugaya.

'Yes?'

'When they said that Granite Plateau was deserted, did they mean they were all dead? Or just gone?'

Hitsugaya nearly missed a step. '…That has been bothering me too,' he admitted. 'They could be both dead and gone. We don't know.'

'I guess we'll just have to beat it out of those suckers coming down the mountain straight for us, then,' she said, referring to three figures clad in white descending the rocky mountainside. 'I could employ my feminine wiles.'

Hitsugaya rolled his eyes as he slowed the pace. 'As long as they don't get in my way.'

'You could employ your, uh, masculine wiles?' Matsumoto suggested.

'Matsumoto, this is not a battle of raging hormones amidst the unforgiving storm of puberty. If you are going to be employing any wiles, let them be intelligent, please.'

'I know, Captain, but if nobody lightens the atmosphere around you on a regular basis you would sink into the ground and your height will plunge into the negatives-'

'Thank you for the lovely mental image.' He cut her off but was inwardly grateful, for the pointless bickering and meaningless banter provided a temporary distraction so he could clear his mind.

He had only a moment to gather his composure before the communication link crackled to life, with a controller from the Twelfth calling for roll call. Once they had run through all fifteen double-units, he said, 'Three intruders sighted at east-north-east; be ready for battle.'

The stormbringers appeared to be in a hurry – they scrambled down the steep drop of rocks above the terrace, the weather worsening steadily as they approached. Meanwhile, Hitsugaya and Matsumoto had stopped, sheltering in the shadow of an overhang, listening through the howl of the wind as Hinamori reported the movements of the three intruders from her unit's position atop a nearby hill just south of their position. He tried to block out her voice without losing his concentration on the content of her message - he couldn't take this fight, not when he was sure he would somehow end up mortally endangering her once again.

'One hostile headed north. All units in North and West regions to engage as soon as possible. Two hostiles approaching the eastern terraces. All units in East and South regions to converge,' Hinamori's voice echoed in his ear. 'Unit Two will join the battle in the east; the Twelfth Divison will take over surveillance,' she said shortly before cutting the communication.

Rain had begun to fall in a crescendo, water flying in all directions with the gale, and the mountains were now swathed in thick storm clouds which Hitsugaya noticed a moment before the storm had begun were siphoning away towards the southeast.

'The centre is southeast,' he reported, hoping his message would get through, then turned to Matsumoto. 'Let's go.'

A controller from the Twelfth had entered the network. 'Pressure 930 hectopascals,' he reported monotonously. 'Wind speeds 60 knots. Ice and hail expected towards the centre.'

Releasing an initial burst of wind that dispelled the surrounding rain for a mere split second, Hitsugaya ducked out into the icy cold downpour, negating the violent winds around them as he ran. It was all too familiar - running through muddy terrain while getting soaked through to the bone - so familiar he feared he would let his guard down.

The storm seemed to have a mind of its own, combating their efforts efficiently. Is this what Aizen had been doing? Refining their powers? Was it even possible to retain such a high degree of control over such a large area? Normal stormbringers couldn't counteract specific interruptions outside of the eye, but this one was evidently fighting back. He could practically feel the energy evaporate from his being as he doubled his efforts while the air grew more unstable - he knew he was probably already sweating from exertion, but with the rain, there was no way to tell. He glanced over at Matsumoto - this was the third storm they'd fought in just as many nights, and if she was human like he was (she'd better be, or he'd probably die of shock), she was already tired. They didn't have time to follow the spiral of the storm inwards as they usually did, then.

If he was going to have to fight twice as hard as before, he might as well make it quick. 'Matsumoto, we're cutting in.' Turning sharply left, he blasted a wall of the freezing torrent apart, darting in before the stormbringer had the time to react. Once the wall of the spiral repaired itself behind them, he said into the com unit, 'Unit One cutting through.'

He promptly received a response. 'Unit Two cutting through. Remaining units spiral in as per normal,' Hinamori commanded. He could feel his control over the surrounding winds slipping, and could feel Matsumoto pushing more power into countering the storm.

When he whirled around to face the next coil of the spiral, he found Matsumoto had positioned herself at the front, gearing up to decimate the next wall with her feet diagonally apart, knees bent in a slight crouch and arms stretching forward as a channel for the blast of energy, her hands laced together for added stability.

'When did you start stealing my techniques on top of my stationery?' he questioned, only half-serious.

'Ever since I saw that they worked,' Matsumoto smiled slyly. 'That goes for the stationery too.' Sheets of rain and wind dissolved momentarily with a violently explosive gush of air, and they surged forward.

'Of course they work. I'm the captain,' he smirked, temporarily brushing the issue about the stationery aside. 'And it would work even better if your anchor foot is perpendicular to the direction you're shooting.' Hitsugaya demonstrated as they faced the next layer, centreing his weight.

They moved in again, and traded places. 'Don't lock your elbows,' Hitsugaya advised. 'It makes the recoil worse.'

Matsumoto fired, then fell back while Hitsugaya moved forward. 'Any advice about the stationery?' she joked, although she knew it wasn't the time to distract him, with hail and sleet barely missing them every minute while they forced their way through layer after layer of intensifying rain.

'Just one,' he replied. 'Buy your own.'

Matsumoto's witty retort died in her throat when they broke into the centre of the storm. The shift in weather was always too sudden and disorienting. At the very centre of the eye, a girl was perched atop a large boulder with one leg crossed over the other, her chin propped up in her hand while her elbow leaned relaxedly against her knee. She smiled serenely at the two disgruntled leaders of the Tenth.

'Are you the next round?' she asked, stretching in a most catlike manner. Her voice was angelic, clear and sweet like the tinkling of glass bells, yet had a certain rough edge that sounded as if the bells were grating against rock. Matsumoto instantly decided she didn't like her. The stormbringer absently swept a lock of cropped brown hair behind one ear before she continued speaking. 'There aren't quite nearly as many of you as there were in the last group,' she grinned menacingly, spreading her arms theatrically towards the grass behind her where Matsumoto noticed, for the first time, tens of figures clad in black were strewn motionless across the usually-calm meadow.

She tried to swallow her panic. The only unit that had been closer to the eye of the storm than they had been at the start, and had cut through just as they had, was-

'Hinamori,' Hitsugaya choked out, though he refused to take his eyes off the enemy. 'What have you done?' the twisted look of rage and horror that he wore was a terrifying sight.

'Oh, don't worry,' the stormbringer laughed flippantly. 'They're not dead. Not yet, at least.' Her stone-grey eyes twinkled dangerously.

'Then what about the people of Granite Plateau?' he asked.

'I heard you were smart, Tenth Captain, so let me ask the questions instead. Why do you tire after controlling a storm?'

Hitsugaya spared a glance in Matsumoto's direction - both of them had both hands on a gun - then turned back to the intruder. 'Controlling a storm takes energy. Life energy, not physical energy,' he intoned.

The girl nodded placatingly. 'We can't boost our powers by harnessing external energy. Only humans produce life energy.'

'So?' his patience was wearing thin.

'So, say you don't want to wait for your body to recover its lost energy. Say you want to explosively expand the power in your reserves. How would you do it?'

Hitsugaya stopped dead, breath caught in his throat as the world seemed to stretch around him as realisation dawned. 'Absorbing life energy is illegal,' he spat aggressively, and paused for a deep breath to calm down. 'Actually, murder is also super illegal.'

The girl threw her head back and laughed as if it was the best - or worst - joke she had ever heard.

Hitsugaya flicked the safety off his first gun, the sharp click silencing the stormbringer instantly. 'I know you're not alone,' he said venomously. 'We saw two of you headed this way. So where is your companion?'

Matsumoto turned, taking one step back so she and Hitsugaya faced opposite directions, and readied her gun.

'Oh, very good. Not a stupid one, are you? The rest of them,' the girl jerked a thumb at the unconscious Unit Two, 'didn't even notice. Why don't you guess where he is?'

The storm was still raging, and at first it looked as if this girl was its centre - she was in the very middle of the meadow it spanned - but the eye of the storm included a portion of the mountain slope. So the centre of the meadow was not its core. If he had to pinpoint an area that was both the core of the eye and a hiding place, it would be-

Hitsugaya turned his gun's aim on a stout tree, thick with leaves, along the edge of the meadow, close to the foot of the mountain. He pulled the trigger down to its first click.

The girl's face twisted into an asymmetrical grin. 'Come out, Ares,' she called. 'You've been discovered.'

A white figure dropped soundlessly from a branch in the tree, landing agilely in the grass. As he moved, the storm shifted in accordance. He strode over, all long limbs and long torso, with a head of messy black hair. Neither he nor the girl could have been older than twenty, Hitsugaya estimated.

When the pair was side by side, the storm seemed to grow in intensity, and he tried to push back his worry for the units out in the storm.

'You must be thinking,' the girl said abruptly, '"_When will the balance disintegrate?" _Such a large storm cannot maintain itself for so long, right?'

Hitsugaya glared at her. At least mind-reading didn't appear to be one of her talents.

'Let me teach you something,' she continued, exuding conceit. 'Ares here has a lot more power than you think - this whole storm is his. _I _control his storm. You can call me Athena.' She was still seated atop the boulder, looking down on the world with immeasurable superiority.

'Athena and Ares? Apt,' Hitsugaya commented.

'Two on two sounds fair, don't you think?' Athena said sweetly. 'Captain and Lieutenant of the Tenth Division, Hitsugaya Toshiro and Matsumoto Rangiku, we challenge you to a death match.'

Hitsugaya set his aim straight and fired wordlessly, unsurprised when a violent gust carried the bullet off its course, causing his shot to miss its mark by an embarrassing margin.

'Just because you're not aiming at me,' Athena seethed, 'doesn't mean I won't stop you.'

Meanwhile, Ares stood unfazed and unscathed, seemingly unperturbed that he had just been shot at and was only spared because his companion had acted.

If Ares lost his concentration, Hitsugaya concluded, the storm would dissolve, allowing their troops in. But as long as Athena was defending him, chances of that happening were slim.

'We take the girl down first,' he muttered to Matsumoto, who nodded almost imperceptibly. 'The moment she falls, I want you to take the other one out.'

With one smooth, practised motion, Hitsugaya had flipped his gun over and holstered it. 'How do you feel about hand to hand combat?'

Athena, who had been casually spinning a knife in one hand, stopped and levelled him with a hard look. 'If either of you draws, the rules are void. I will draw, and your little friends on the floor will be dead before you can shoot,' she threatened, and sheathed the weapon. 'And both of you will be dead before you can regret it.'

They exploded into action, closing the distance in an instant. Hitsugaya had crouched low and was about to launch a double-footed kick when crackling static in his ear surprised him enough to place him at a disadvantage, and a heavy kick to the side of his ribs sent him crashing to the ground. He vaguely registered Matsumoto diving in with a punch, which must have connected since he managed to roll over and right himself without being knocked down again.

'Pressure 935 hectopascals,' the controller droned. 'They have sent you backup, Captain Hitsugaya.'

'Backup?' he managed to splutter. Had the other battles ended?

'Captain Ukitake sends Kurosaki and his regards.'

Ah. So they were in trouble, then, if the outsider boy was all the backup they had to offer.

By the time he had rejoined the brawl, which had to be only a few seconds later, he found Matsumoto and Athena staring each other down ferociously, both bruised and bloody - the latter had a split lip. The stormbringer girl stood her ground adamantly between them and Ares, who stood a short distance away.

'Change of plan,' he told Matsumoto, and charged recklessly past Athena, who moved to block him but was forced to duck out of the way when Matsumoto leapt into the fray.

He feinted left, and tried something he'd never done before, desperately hoping it would work. He threw a wild punch, forcing Ares to step back, then spun a storm under himself and risked a running jump. The gamble succeeded far beyond his expectations, and he found himself being thrown into the air by his own winds. He had a split-second to reorient himself mid-air and tuck his knees up to his chest, legs crossed at the ankles, arms thrown wide for balance. He looked down, and directed his descent with another strong gust.

He nearly missed, but managed to land heavily on Ares' shoulders, and with a sharp kick between the shoulder blades, the stormbringer fell to the ground before he could utter a cry of surprise. A few clouds dispersed and the storm weakened, which served only to enrage Athena.

'Matsumoto, now!' he shouted, the moment she snapped. His lieutenant executed a spectacular roundhouse kick that knocked the wind out of her opponent long enough for her to wrestle and pin her to the ground.

'Surrender. The battle is over,' Hitsugaya said. Under his hold, he could see Ares struggling to keep the storm going.

'We challenged you to a _death match_, stupid,' Athena snarled. 'Nobody's dead yet.'

Hitsugaya raised an eyebrow. 'A while ago you said I wasn't stupid,' he pointed out.

'I take it back. I would rather take my own life than surrender to a stormhunter,' she sneered, obviously enraged.

Hitsugaya had not anticipated her next move, but took full advantage of the circumstances when Athena unsheathed her knife.

In a flash, he whipped out his gun, flicked the safety off and fired mercilessly. The look of shock, loathe and betrayal on the girl's face was so unexpectedly human compared to her earlier display of bravado that Hitsugaya began to feel guilt gnawing at the edges of his conscience.

'"_If either of you draws, the rules are void. I will draw, and your little friends on the floor will be dead before you can shoot, and both of you will be dead before you can regret it._" Am I right?' He asked icily.

The storm dissipated without a trace as Ares went limp, except for the wreckage that used to be scenic Sunbeam Valley and the drenched and exhausted soldiers. A metallic stench began to fill the air, drowning out the earthy odour of crushed wet grass.

'I underestimated your cruelty,' Athena laughed drily. She twisted, knocking Matsumoto down with an efficient jab to the base of her neck, and sprang back up, casting her knife to the ground. 'Let's start over, one on one,' she said, wiping her bloodied chin with the back of her hand. She didn't appear too steady on her feet, and seemed to be short of breath. Hitsugaya knew he must look the same way, as he forced himself to remain upright.

Hitsugaya returned his gun to his belt and lowered his stance. 'Very well,' he said. His opponent was obviously waiting for him to rush in so instead, he leaned his weight ever so slightly back as he laced his hands together and raised them, outstretched but not locked. When he released a freezing column of air, he didn't bother checking if it even came anywhere near his mark, and broke into a run, preparing to repeat the manoeuvre he had used to defeat Ares. This time he was less steady, and the dark spots dancing across his vision disrupted his balance even as he flung his arms out, and he felt himself shaking like a machine on the verge ot breaking down. He was almost out of energy, he realised, feeling oddly detached from reality.

He let gravity do its work as he dropped down towards Athena, and the force sent her down and knocked him aside where he crash-landed in the grass, rolling several times before he finally came to a halt, curled up on his side. His lungs were screaming for air even though he was gasping on the verge of hyperventilation, and the world spun so uncontrollably around him it threatened to collapse as he lost his grasp on any rational trains of thought.

God, if only he could just catch his breath.

A pair of hands rolled him onto his back, and he vaguely registered the sight of Fifth and Tenth Division soldiers carrying the unconscious and injured to the side. After an eternity of just laying there motionlessly, his breathing had slowed to a respectable rate and he cracked his tired eyes open - when had they shut? - and saw Kurosaki standing over him.

'Oh, good,' the other teenager said. 'You're back.'

Hitsugaya pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked around. Most of the soldiers had left, presumably proceeding with their respective cleanup duties. 'Water?' he managed to croak. He noticed that all who had been involved in the earlier battle - himself, Matsumoto and Unit Two - still lay where he last remembered. He found himself worrying about how a clear night was falling and he hadn't sent anyone to the lake, which meant they were going to have yet another energy shortage, and groaned.

'Funny you should ask,' Kurosaki joked. 'Heaps of it just fell out of the sky this evening.' Despite his words, he handed him a small canteen of water. 'A medical team is on its way,' he informed the captain.

'Hm,' Hitsugaya hummed in acknowledgement. 'How long was I out?'

'Not long,' Kurosaki replied. 'Half an hour? I saw you fly, by the way. Are you sure you're human?'

He decided not to answer the question and instead pushed himself fully upright, turning to look guiltily at the crumpled forms of Hinamori and Matsumoto. Turns out he really couldn't fight for himself and protect others at the same time - perhaps it was a cruel, fated conundrum he would never solve.

'Uh, are you okay?' the orange-haired stormbringer asked hesitantly. 'You look like you're going to spew- I- uh, shouldn't you lay back down? You're going to spill that water, incidentally.'

He set the canteen down and buried his face into his knees. 'The pressure is changing,' he mumbled. 'Someone's coming.' Then he forced himself unsteadily to his feet. With detached amusement, he recalled Matsumoto saying something about coconut trees. When he looked up, he had to do a double take, because according to his eyes, Aizen Sosuke, traitor and backstabbing murderer extraordinaire was gently floating downwards on a finely-controlled pillar of wind.

'So that's how you break in without crossing the border,' Hitsugaya said sourly, not without hostility once he had figuratively re-hinged his jaw. 'You could have told us, then we wouldn't have driven ourselves mad analysing border activity logs.'

'Nice to see you too, Captain Hitsugaya,' the former captain greeted amicably.

'And what the hell do you think you're doing here?' Hitsugaya demanded, taking a worryingly wobbly double-handed aim with his gun.

'This is my valley, after all,' Aizen said, sickeningly peacefully, spreading his arms wide as if he were surveying the grandeur that was the wrecked valley. 'I just wanted to offer my adoring lieutenant a royal position in my future kingdom.' He turned to Ichigo, who looked ready to reach out and strangle him. 'I welcome you also, Ichigo, to a kingdom of your kind. Imagine a world where Stormbringers and Stormhunters are literally one, where there will no longer be pointless clashes such as this.'

'Hinamori isn't conscious to give you an answer,' Hitsugaya interrupted. 'Try again never.'

'In fact,' continued Aizen, as if Hitsugaya hadn't spoken, 'I would go as far as to say you were obliged to join me, Ichigo, as it was I who spared you the destruction at Granite Plateau.'

'Stand back, Toshiro, this is my battle.' Ichigo stepped forward, but Hitsugaya didn't lower his weapon.

'Why did you murder the people of Granite Plateau?' Hitsugaya plowed forward, completely ignoring Ichigo. The level of communication in the conversation was dangerously close to zero. 'How did you absorb their life energy in just forty-eight hours?'

'Murder?' Ichigo intoned hollowly. Hitsugaya cringed inwardly. Gently breaking shocking news was not one of his strong suits.

'They stood in the way of my unification of stormbringers and stormhunters, as do you,' Aizen reasoned calmly with a blithe gesture, as if he were talking about weather.

'Only madmen think genocide is a solution for peace,' Hitsugaya sneered, readjusting his shamefully shaky aim in his tired arms.

'I wouldn't shoot if I were you,' Aizen contributed most helpfully as he gestured towards the prone forms of Hinamori and Matsumoto lying side by side. Five red target lights flickered over them. 'I wouldn't shoot if I were you, because I, unlike you, have snipers positioned on the mountainside.'

Hitsugaya glared as murderously as he could without falling over.

'Or,' Aizen continued, 'are you willing to trade their lives for mine?'

He couldn't protect if he wanted to fight, couldn't fight if he wanted to save those he had sworn not to let down; it was like a double-edged blade - no matter which way he held it, it would always be pointing straight back at him.

Ever so slowly, Hitsugaya lowered his arms until his barrel was pointed downwards. Then he relinquished his grip on the gun, letting it tumble to the ground where it bounced like a toy.

'Very good,' Aizen smiled his gentle, disarming smile. 'The other gun, Captain Hitsugaya.'

Almost as if he were in a stupor, he repeated the motion mechanically with his spare pistol, dropping it helplessly from his belt. Then slowly, he stepped over and placed himself between the two unconscious lieutenants and Aizen, who was now looking immensely satisfied and superior.

He glanced at Kurosaki, and then closed his eyes as he dredged up every last reserve of energy he could find. The rifling of snipers' rifles was almost always clockwise, which meant if he could create a barrier that spun anticlockwise with enough power to kill its speed, he could stop the bullets. He drew up a cylindrical storm around himself and Matsumoto and Hinamori, creating countless minute stationary points that would become centres of rotation. Trying two new things in one day was new to him - did that mean he was technically trying three? - and he absently wondered what the chances of him succeeding twice were.

He crouched, to minimise the height required of his storm, and opened his eyes.

'Kurosaki,' he called, his voice low. The other boy looked over quizzically, and Hitsugaya closed his eyes again. 'Kill him,' he said frigidly, and sealed off his barrier over the top and set it spinning anticlockwise.

He didn't know how long he held up for, didn't know how the battle went, didn't even know if his barrier worked or if the snipers just didn't shoot, or if the snipers were a farce and Aizen just had some fancy laser pointers. When the air's pressure finally returned to normal, he knew it was finally over - that he could finally stop holding desperately on to consciousness, and felt his barrier of wind peeling away ephemerally as he relinquished his grip on the air. He felt himself sink down into the muddy ground - his height into the negatives? The ground around him was littered with bullets and Kurosaki stood triumphant a distance away, but he didn't have the energy to revel in the success as his vision faded and breath evaded him.

.

.

.

.

The morning sunshine was warm, and it was yet another slow day at the Fifth Division. Being in charge of the archives meant she did spend a majority of her days finding books she had not yet read. Sometimes she wondered what it was like at some of the other divisions, where it was always busy. She paused in front of her mirror, still unsure of her relatively new hairstyle - if it would grow on her the way her bun and ribbon had - but she liked how the bob seemed to give her a refreshing look. Slightly ashamed for worrying about such frivolous things right after a war, she hastily broke eye contact with the tired girl in the mirror and turned away.

Hinamori Momo was brewing herself a pot of tea when there was a knock at the door. 'You have a visitor, Lieutenant Hinamori,' called a voice from outside. Instinctively, she straightened her collar and was suddenly conscious of the plaque on her desk that indicated her as acting captain of the Fifth. She didn't know if she would ever be ready to accept the replacement they had yet to find for Aizen. Her gaze lingered on the captain's desk, which was deserted where it used to be piled high with books and scrolls, a second longer than she meant to.

'Send them in,' she called, hoping the tremor in her voice went unnoticed.

She stopped short when the door opened to reveal her childhood friend, seemingly stuck in the doorway, overladen with hesitation. Hinamori tried her best to school a smile onto her face. 'Come on in, Shiro,' she invited after taking a moment to compose herself. It was funny, she thought, how he always felt responsible for her despite her being a whole year ahead of him. It was funny, she thought, how she used to miss him so much when they had first been assigned to their divisions, yet they had so quickly grown distant.

Awkwardly, Hitsugaya shuffled into the office and stiffly seated himself on one end of a small couch. The jet-black stormhunter uniform made him look smaller than he already was, and the small golden captain's badge pinned to his jacket's breast pocket looked far too heavy, Hinamori sighed. While he always stood ramrod-straight to make up for his lack of height, his shoulders were now slumped with a tiredness she knew plagued herself too.

'You've changed,' he said slowly, as if he were choosing his words carefully.

'The hair?' she asked, not daring to speak of anything beyond the superficial. 'I...needed to let go of some things, I guess.' Her old ribbon had been a gift from Aizen, and she had used it all the way through the war before she began questioning its significance.

Another silence passed, its awkwardness exacerbated by the cheery atmosphere of the warmly sunlit room, before Hitsugaya spoke again. 'How have you been?' he asked, still not making eye contact. Then again, perhaps it was her own fault for not acknowledging his presence enough, with the way she stood by her desk, almost afraid to approach the boy she never thought would be a stranger.

'We've all definitely been better,' Hinamori carefully evaded the implications of Hitsugaya's question. She knew that her gear hung loose where it had been fitting just over a month ago, that her equipment belt felt heavier with every passing day, and that her frail composure was like a translucent disguise. 'Captain Unohana says my stamina will return in due time.'

'I'm sorry,' Hitsugaya blurted, as if it would fill the silence. 'If I didn't- If I hadn't-' he faltered uncharacteristically. 'I shouldn't have lost my temper. I should have been more careful. I should have come sooner. I'm sorry I hurt you so many times.'

Hinamori knew that he was talking about more than the most recent battle, that he was referring to the chaotic downward spiral they had plunged down outside the Third's compound in the first violent clash brought on by Aizen's nefarious plot, that this tidal wave of guilt was mostly due to the second last battle that had taken place just over a month earlier. Hinamori knew, not because she remembered but because she had read the reports, that she had been caught in a brutal clash between Hitsugaya and Aizen, that she had crumpled from the unforgiving icy winds of Hitsugaya's storm, and that his gunshot had barely missed her right lung.

She did not remember much from that battle.

'It's okay,' she tried and failed to reassure him. 'You didn't get me that bad,' she said, knowing full well that her lie was about as solid as cotton.

'I know where I hit,' Hitsugaya argued. 'And I know who I hit. I'm so, _so_ sorry. I'll be leaving now.'

'No, wait,' she called out before he could stand. 'We- We've only talked about you. We haven't talked about me yet,' Hinamori started forward, loosening the vice grip she'd had on the table's edge. She relaxed when, for the first time in a year, Hitsugaya peered at her through unkempt hair.

'Do you remember when Aizen left the Valleys?' she said, not waiting for his response. 'I know you tried to make me see sense, and I know he nearly killed you for it. I should have trusted you, and I'm sorry for not listening. I'm sorry for dragging you down with my weakness. I'm sorry for crippling you with my incapabilities.'

'That's different,' Hitsugaya said softly, having reverted to not looking at her.

'You say you know who you hit, but let me tell you something you don't know,' Hinamori sat down next to him on the couch. 'That girl you said you hurt? She'll be fine. She's doing her best at living. And you know what? She forgives you. She forgave you a long time ago.' With that, she drew him into a hug. 'She'll forgive you over and over again no matter what happens.'

They were both thinner, more fragile than she last remembered.

In less than a second, nostalgia returned like a wave crashing unceremoniously onto the shore when Hitsugaya began flapping and swatting. 'Let go, oh my god. You know how I feel about hugs. You know how I feel about _feelings_.'

'You should sleep,' Hinamori said, not letting go. 'You look like shit.'

'You should eat,' Hitsugaya returned. 'You look even shittier than I do.'

And for the first time in a long, long time, the two of them laughed.

* * *

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_Fin._

_._

* * *

_I wrote a happy ending! Aren't you proud of me? I'm sorry if I couldn't put as much detail into the surrounding world and the concept and each character's conflict as I would have liked, because then it would have gotten excessively long and messy and impossible to clear up, so I focused on Hitsu. (Sorry if you were geared up for some Ichigo badassery and got a pathetic ending instead.) The plight of everyone else is up to your imagination...? Probably. But a review would make everything better, yes?_

_Also, at a long last, after detracting slightly from my regular weird genre to write this, I've figured it out. My genre is probably _gothic_. Using the modern lexicon is so much fun, and is a really nice change from the stiff gothic style._

_And to answer lovely reviewer _kurgaya_'s question, pretty much the whole universe and concept I used here are completely original, hence its dismal underdevelopment, and probably your confusion. Oops._

_Thank you for putting up with nearly 5000 words of solid battle with a terrible open ending followed by emotional sap. Thank you for sticking with me through 13k words of me blabbing on endlessly._


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